Ali off to Ontario Starskate Championship

For Morrisburg and District figure skater Ali VanHoof, it’s been a season of ups and downs. But with a hugely solid performance behind her at the, February 15-17, EOSIC at Whitby, Ontario, the 16 year old, grade 10 student at Seaway District High School is exactly where she wanted to be when it started…training for the upcoming 2013 Ontario Starskate Championships in Fort Erie, Ontario.

For a period of several weeks last fall, Ali’s hope of qualifying at EOSIC for a spot at the Ontario Championship wasn’t looking good.

“Ali started her season by training over the summer (2012), developing new programs with the goal of qualifying at EOSIC in the Triathlon event to go on to the Skate Ontario StarSkate Championship,” explains her coach Louise Dimmick. “It all seemed on track until she suffered an injury to her ankle warming up at a competition at the end of September. That kept her off the ice for five weeks, and limited her as to what she could practice for an additional three weeks once she came back.”

It resulted in her planned 4.5 month pre-competition preparation time being cut in half.

“She had just over two months to get back into competition shape both physically and mentally, as well as finish the preparation and polish of four programs,” says Dimmick. “We were faced with a daunting challenge.”

But, says Dimmick, “it is amazing what can be accomplished by the human spirit with perseverance and support.”

Despite the injury-plagued season, Van Hoof worked hard and her results were impressive at the Eastern Ontario Section Inter Club event (EOSIC) in Whitby, which allowed her to qualify for the upcoming Ontario Starskate competition from March 22-24.

The Triathlon is a three part event with skaters competing in Skills, Interpretive and Freeskating.

Ali started the Triathlon at EOSIC with a personal best skate in her Skills program. “She demonstrated good edges, turns and spirals and filled the boardless ice surface with her speed and power,” says Dimmick.

Her performance put her in fourth place with only 1/100th of a point separating her from third spot going into the Interpretive program.

“Her Interpretive program, admittedly her weakest part of the Triathlon, was the true breakthrough of the weekend,” says Dimmick explaining that Interpretive requires that the skater communicate a theme to the audience through performing skating moves to music.

“Cleopatra’s Conquest was a fitting theme for Ali this season as it signifies the fight and determination she has demonstrated in order to challenge for her goals given the obstacles she has faced.”

In skating her Interpretive, Ali shattered her previous score by over 12 points to earn a fifth place finish in the Interpretive segment. This moved her into third place with her strongest event, Freeskate, yet to come.

“I knew going into the Triathlon that the Freeskate would be my strongest. I knew that it could be the one that could lift me up,” says Ali. “I was fairly confident going in, but after I was finished I knew there were a few things I could have done better. I felt that I had skated well enough though to be in the top somewhere.”

And indeed she had. An excellent performance placed her first in the Freeskate segment and landed her an overall second place finish in the Silver Triathlon Event to qualify for this month’s Ontario Starskate Championship.

During her EOSIC Freeskate, VanHoof landed five double jumps, two double, double combinations, a double lutz and a third jump combination-Axel plus loop.

She performed three great spins including a death drop flying spin and two combinations which included difficult variations.

As for the upcoming Starskate Championship, VanHoof says she is now training hard. “I’m going to try to add to my Interpretive, and I am working on cleaner turns in my skills.”

“I am trying to up my mark a bit in all of my programs.”

Ali has been skating since she was a wee tot. She is a very motivated skater and works very hard. She successfully balances her skating with her school studies, school athletics and a part-time job.

She is one of only a few local skaters to earn the opportunity to skate at provincial levels.

Morrisburg Junior B Lions coach Thom Racine sees the St. Lawrence Division as one that could develop into two tiers and to keep that from happening he says his Lions have to get tougher.

After a weekend that saw the Lions start strong with a 7-2 win over the Char-Lan Rebels on home ice Friday night, and then fall victim to the Glens in Alexandria, 7-1, Sunday, Racine says “I think we were a little intimidated by them (Glens). They are a big physical team, and we didn’t have the match for them.”

“We have to get tougher, and I have to find a way to motivate them on the physical side of things. They have to learn to play tough, and they have to have each other’s back. They talk about how the game has changed, but intimidation is still there.”

Friday night, the 7-2 win gave the Lions a good start to the weekend.

They scored their first goal, on the first shot of their first shift in the first 10 seconds of the match when Ryan Ward (from Clarke Veenstra) put the puck past Rebels goaltender Robbie Chapman.

“Scoring nine seconds into a game usually works well,” said Racine and work well it did.

Clarke Veenstra gave the Lions a two-goal lead at 9:02 of the frame with help from Alex Steingruber and Ward, and Ryan Dunbar made it 3-0 with help from Marc Antoine Kamel at 12:18.

The Rebels got one back from Quinlin MacDonell at 14:08 to cut the gap to 3-1.

In the second period “Michael Poapst (from Sylvester Bzdyl) got his first goal of the season to get the monkey off his back,” said Racine.

The 4-1 Lions lead carried well into the third period until Tyler Filion counted for the Rebels at 9:10.

“When they made it 4-2, that old nervousness started to come back,” said Racine recalling the number of times last year, the Lions collapsed to give up a lead and settle for a disappointing loss.

This time out however, the Lions held on, and an unassisted Brayden Girard goal at 15:58 ended the jitters and put them back on track.

“Brayden is a great skater, and he doesn’t score many goals. So when he goes in and scores a goal it is huge,” said Racine.

Seeing his first full game, was rookie goaltender Ryan Cooper. “Ryan played well,” said Racine. “He was promised that game as a start and he played well.”

Charged up by the Girard goal, the Lions finished it off with goals from Clarke Veenstra (from Steingruber) and Lance Hodgson (from Michael Paquette) for the 7-2 win, their second of the young season.

Then on Sunday, the Lions were on the road to Alexandria where they managed only one goal against the Glens from Lance Hodgson (Brayden Girard and Zach Seguin) early in the second period.

They held the Glens to a 1-0 first period lead, but fell behind 2-0, 2:38 into the second period. Hodgson’s goal at 3:15 kept it close at 2-1. Just over a minute later, the Glens upped it to 3-1, and they stretched it with a short-handed goal at 18:27 of the frame.

Three unanswered third period goals gave them the 7-1 win.

“We were hanging in,” says Racine. “We were 2-1 in the second period, then a mistake and before you know it you are down a couple of goals.”

“The three goals, in three minutes, in the third period put us away.”

Also hurting in the effort was a short bench. The Veenstras were unable to make the game, and Michel Thurler was sitting out his second game of a six game suspension.

Racine was relieved that Steingruber was in the lineup after he was injured the week before.

Racine is looking forward to playing at full strength, sooner rather than later.

“We are trying to be a skilled team with four lines, but we haven’t been able to ice that (full) team yet.”

Coming up this weekend, the Lions are in Winchester against the Hawks Friday night, October 7 for an 8:15 p.m. start. Sunday, October 9, they host the Alexandria Glens at 2:30 p.m.

The Casselman Vikings and the Glens are currently tied for the St. Lawrence Division top spot with 12 points each, both with six wins and one loss.

The Winchester Hawks have nine points on four wins, one loss and one tie, and the Lions have four points on a pair of wins.

Akwesasne has one tie and Char-Lan is still looking for their first point of the season.

The New Blue struck seven times in the third period and that was more than enough to take out the Morewood Monkeys in Men’s Roller Hockey League action here last Thursday.

It was actually a case of the missing Monkeys in the third period, as they had held the league leading New Blue to a 4-3 lead in the first period and trailed only 9-6 at the end of two.

While New Blue goaltender Will McIntire held the Monkeys from the scoreboard in the third, Monkey goaltender Kyle Shane gave up seven to the Blues for the 16-6 Blue win.

Garreth Cochrane and Lance Hodgson were the top Blue shooters with four goals apiece. Tommy Keyes connected for three goals, Justin Elliott had two and singles came from Jamie McIntosh, Aron Sherrer and Randy Markell.

Mike Thompson and Tyler Jones answered twice each for the Monkeys, and Chris Embury and Justin Heuff had singles.

The win allowed the New Blue to remain undefeated after four games. They hold a full four point advantage over White Lightning, who Thursday night, collected a 13-8 victory from the Red Rockets.

They led the Rockets 4-2 after the first period and 9-5 after two.

Steve Mattice had a huge night for Lightning with five goals while Brandon Buma and Chris Embury added three apiece, and Dave Summers and Bill Henderson struck for singles.

Summers added six assists to his one goal effort.

Answering for the Rockets, against Lightning goaltender Barret Brundige, were Chad McMillan, David Patterson and Dean Moore all with two goals and Craig Belanger and Darrel Moore with singles.

Chris Sloan handled the loss in the Rockets net.

The win allowed Lightning to take over the league’s second spot with four points. The Rockets are in third with three and the Monkeys have just one.